About the Team

A group of highly motivated MIT students, the lure of winning big money, and a unique blackjack training system. What began as intellectual curiosity eventually became an extremely lucrative enterprise for a select group of MIT students. It all began at MIT in 1958 with a professor named Edward Thorp. Thorp's brilliant intuition led him to believe it was possible to beat the game of blackjack. After months of analysis and countless computer simulations, Thorp formulated a strategy by which players could actually gain the advantage over the house - card counting. In 1962, Thorp revealed card counting to the world when he published Beat the Dealer. As word spread that the game of 21 could be beat, people began to flock to the blackjack tables in hopes of making their fortunes, and soon blackjack became the number one table game that it is today.

In the summer of 1994, more than thirty years after Beat the Dealer was published, a group of MIT students was secretly recruited to put blackjack theory and newly developed training methods to the test. Combining the knowledge and wisdom from past experience with a new training approach, this ingenious group of MIT students set out to conquer Vegas. That marked the beginning of the legendary run of the MIT Blackjack Team. The team would go on to win millions and take blackjack to extraordinary heights. The exploits of this infamous blackjack team are chronicled in Ben Mezrich's best selling book, Bringing Down the House, which is the basis for the major motion picture, 21.

Dave Irvine is founder of the Blackjack Institute and was a member of the MIT Blackjack Team. After MIT, Dave earned a masters degree in biological engineering from Cornell and an MBA from Purdue University's Krannert School of Management. Dave also owns a successful engineering consulting company.